Comparative Performance Evaluation of Classical Machine Learning and Quantum SVM for Heart Disease Prediction using a Quantum-Featured Dataset

Heart disease remains a leading cause of mortality globally, driving interest in advanced computational methods forearly prediction. This study presents a comparative analysis of classical machine learning techniques versus a QuantumSupport Vector Machine (QSVM) for predicting heart disease using a specialized dataset featuring standard clinicalmetrics alongside a unique 'QuantumPatternFeature. 'We implemented and evaluated six classical algorithms (LogisticRegression, K-Nearest Neighbors, Decision Tree, Random Forest, Naive Bayes, Gradient Boosting), employingRandomizedSearchCV for hyperparameter optimization. For the quantum approach, a QSVC utilizing Qiskit'sZZFeatureMap (reps=2) and FidelityQuantumKernel was trained and tested using a classical simulator. A classicalSupport Vector Classifier (SVC) with an RBF kernel served as an additional baseline. Performance was assessed on a20% hold-out test set using accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and confusion matrices. Results indicate that tunedclassical models, particularly Logistic Regression and Gradient Boosting, achieved the highest accuracy (93.0%),significantly outperforming the simulated QSVC (79.0%). The classical SVC baseline also surpassed the QSVM with89.0% accuracy. Furthermore, the QSVM exhibited substantially higher computational times for both training andprediction on the simulator compared to all classical methods. The findings suggest that for this dataset size and thespecific simulated QSVM configuration, classical machine learning approaches offer superior performance andefficiency, and the 'QuantumPatternFeature' did not confer a discernible advantage within this quantum implementationframework.